Yeah I've rejected apologies that didn't address the transgression and explained directly why. Sometimes people see what you mean and you can tell they feel guilty that they've wronged you, even if they didn't fully understand why. In a way that's often good enough, as long as they can also understand why after being told.

I've had people categorically revoke their apology after giving a shitty "sorry if my totally valid actions makde you feel bad" sort of apology and being rejected. So you spit on the ground and tell them never to darken your vision with their presence. Easy.

I had a housemate apologize in advance for the poor behavior of his guests later that night. I don't think I formally rejected it, but I certainly wasn't impressed. So you know this is going to upset me enough to warrant an apology, but you're won't be addressing your behavior, or your friends, you're just going to do it anyway, with a clean conscience because you've already apologized?

If you find yourself constantly surrounded by a bunch malignant narcissists, you're always the one apologizing, so no worries there.

The closest thing to an apology I've heard from these types of people is "I have my faults". Word for word from multiple individuals.

When the apology was for something that kept repeating again and again, and so it started to lose its meaning.

A sincere apology, absolutely not.

We're a bunch of social, naked apes. We're always screwing around with this or that.

Heaven help the local moron who thinks he's better than the other ape.

Heaps. I was a doorman and bouncer, plenty of guys tried to apologise for their shit behaviour, fuck your apology, behave yourself better in the first place.

Apologies (and more importantly amends) are owed and paid because they are a debt on the debtor. I am not in turn owed a receipt for either. It hurts to not get an acknowledgent, but if I'm upset that I didn't get one, I have to start this statement over.

Worth noting I am really bad at this. Been actively trying it for exactly ten years as of tomorrow come to think of it...

I have been on both sides, and I believe the only justification needed is in the heart of the individual. Another thing to consider is that narcissists often weaponize apologies to avoid consequences. Theirs become meaningless over time to those "closest" to them.

So often (at least in my experience) an 'apology' is just used as camouflage for another attempt to argue the point of view of the one supposedly apologizing. Nope, sorry. Try again.

If an apology does not include an explicit and expressed admission of guilt without excuses, it's not an apology. It's a con job.

Yes I have, yes it is, and I've learned to be a little more graceful and gracious about it.

Insincere, not addressing the issues, addressing them and repeating them, sorry-not-sorry.

My mother has a habit of giving insincere non apologies, and I started to reject them because I know their fake. Whether it's the standard "I'm sorry if you are offended/your feelings are hurt", I'm just over them. No thanks. Change the behavior.

Plenty of times at work, I see people give an apology for something they had no control over, or did have control over but were acting in good faith, so they're quick to start dropping apologies to management especially, hoping that it will diffuse the situation. I'm quick to step in with "naw fuck that, this isn't on you, let's figure out what happened and why so we can stop it from happening again"

Most healthcare settings embrace that kind of no-fault model unless someone was actually behaving maliciously or recklessly, but... that's only on paper. Management can still be quick to throw someone under the bus if they think it'll take some heat off the department, so when someone starts offering themselves to the bus cuz that's the path of least drama, I'll redirect to systems flaws before management has a chance to act on that.

No-one has bothered to try apologizing for the shit they put me through to begin with.

Yes. An apology is a promise to do better in the future, and I wasn't interested in remaining in contact with that person.

My life has improved without them. I don't miss them. So I feel like it was the right call.

background: im german and the word for apology translates to "un-debt" (to remove the dept).

I never liked that there where sentences like "i un-debt myself" so at some point in early childhood i refused them outright because i am the one they have a debt to and asked them to ask instead: "will you accept my un-debt?"
Ot some point i also refused apologies because they where forced by parents (not genuine) or because they had no "debt" to repay to me.

Thats why i like the german word more, its so much more clear because its a combined word.

My family supported my opinion and my jounger brother adapted it naturally :)

I've been heard to say, from time to time, that apologies only count if you also stop doing the thing you're sorry about.

yes, and yes.

because they didn't take responsibility for their actions. they blamed continued to blame me for 'making' them do it.

and i'm not talking about hurt feelings. i'm talking about cheating, lying, and theft.

Yes, I was still furious, they didn't even really admit to the issue.

Was it right?

I still think so, I don't think you should get away easily if you screwed up. I think you should have the opportunity to own stuff and improve and earn the respect and trust of everyone involved through that. But nobody owes you to just move on.

Not that I can recall. An apology in earnest (when one has realized the error in their ways/thought, acknowledges it and wants to rebuild the bridges they might have burned or damaged by being nice and actively changing) is never wasted on me, I think.

"I'm sorry you chose to get torqued about it." Nope. You torqued me off when you screwed me over.